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Study Shows Millennials Turned Off by Trendy Church Buildings, Prefer a Classic Sanctuary
The Christian Post ^ | 11/14/14 | Stephanie Samuel

Posted on 11/17/2014 6:23:50 AM PST by marshmallow

Millennials gravitate toward classic, quiet church spaces that feel authentic and provide a break from the busyness of a fast-paced, technological world, revealed a study commissioned by church architectural firms.

Online surveys administered to 843 young adults ages 18 to 29 by Christian research firm Barna Group and Cornerstone Knowledge Network, the market research organization created by church design firms Aspen Group and Cogun, found 67 percent chose the word "classic" to describe their ideal church. By contrast, 33 percent prefer a trendy church as their ideal.

"They don't want something created artificially for them; they don't want a bait and switch. What they want is something deeper and more authentic," Aspen Group AIA Architect Derek Degroot said of the survey results.

That search for authenticity translates into the look and sound Millennials prefer for their ideal church.

When asked to choose their preference between a church sanctuary and a church auditorium, 77 percent chose sanctuary. When shown four different kinds of church windows ranging from modern and least "churchy" to traditionally ornate, over a third of all respondents chose the most ornate stain glass window common to chapels. When shown four styles of church altars, the study showed that a majority of respondents chose altars that "are unambiguously Christian and are more traditional."

"Millennials are a very visual group," explained Barna Vice President of Publishing Roxanne Stone. "If they go into your church and they don't know where to go or it's ambiguous or they don't understand what something is for, they will move on."

Additionally, 78 percent of millennial respondents selected a quiet church as the ideal over a loud church.

(Excerpt) Read more at christianpost.com ...


TOPICS: Worship
KEYWORDS:
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To: SoFloFreeper
Temppeliaukion Church in Töölö, Finland

Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland

Temppeliaukion Church

Space ship? Site of Super Bowl LXXIV?

41 posted on 11/17/2014 7:51:51 AM PST by SoFloFreeper
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To: SoFloFreeper
St. Francis de Sales Church

Catholic church in Muskegon Michigan.

Inside view:

"Faceless Mary with an empty womb"...gimme the shivers.

42 posted on 11/17/2014 7:53:18 AM PST by SoFloFreeper
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To: SoFloFreeper
St. Mary the Assumption in San Francisco.

Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption

Sci-fi influenced?

43 posted on 11/17/2014 7:54:34 AM PST by SoFloFreeper
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To: SoFloFreeper

Borg cube?


44 posted on 11/17/2014 7:55:23 AM PST by CrazyIvan (I lost my phased plasma rifle in a tragic hovercraft accident.)
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To: SoFloFreeper
Third Church of Christ, Scientist

Some Christian Science church in Washington D.C....no thanks.

45 posted on 11/17/2014 7:55:53 AM PST by SoFloFreeper
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To: SoFloFreeper
Russian Orthodox Church

Russian Orthodox church in Paris, France....I think this is kind of cool looking...RCR says it is ugly.

46 posted on 11/17/2014 7:56:54 AM PST by SoFloFreeper
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To: SoFloFreeper
Church of the Most Holy Trinity

Church of the Most Holy Trinity in Vienna, Austria.

My reaction:


47 posted on 11/17/2014 7:59:29 AM PST by SoFloFreeper
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To: SoFloFreeper
Wireman Chapel at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida

Presbyterian Church (USA)

Wireman Chapel at Eckerd College

A giant spider is eating St. Petersburg.

48 posted on 11/17/2014 8:00:21 AM PST by SoFloFreeper
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To: SoFloFreeper
St. Anne's Church

St. Anne's Catholic church in London. Just looks like a coffee house to me...not necessarily ugly.

49 posted on 11/17/2014 8:01:06 AM PST by SoFloFreeper
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To: SoFloFreeper
Catedral Basílica Menor Nossa Senhora da Glória in Maringá, Brazil

Roman Catholic

Catedral Basilica Menor Nossa Senhora da Gloria

RCR calls it a giant dunce cap.

50 posted on 11/17/2014 8:01:59 AM PST by SoFloFreeper
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To: SoFloFreeper
Christus, Hoffnung der Welt in Donau City, Austria.

Roman Catholic

Donau City Church

Looks like a columbarium to me...

Inside:

Donau City Church

51 posted on 11/17/2014 8:03:36 AM PST by SoFloFreeper
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To: SoFloFreeper
Şakirin Mosque in Istanbul, Turkey

Islam

Sakirin Mosque

Looks like typical eastern architecture to me...though it looks like this mosque has what RCR calls a "stairway to nowhere"...

Sakirin Mosque

52 posted on 11/17/2014 8:05:30 AM PST by SoFloFreeper
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To: SoFloFreeper

Protestants, Catholics, Jews, and Christian Scientists all seem to have been hit by an impulse to build ugly church/synagogue buildings since the middle of the last century. In the Protestant world, ugly seems to infect liberals, evangelicals, and charismatics alike. Ugly also knows no national boundaries.


53 posted on 11/17/2014 8:05:38 AM PST by Wallace T.
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To: SoFloFreeper
Guardian Angel Cathedral

Guardian Angel Catholic church in Las Vegas...

Guardian Angel Cathedral

54 posted on 11/17/2014 8:06:01 AM PST by SoFloFreeper
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To: SoFloFreeper
The Tree Cathedral in Italy:


55 posted on 11/17/2014 8:06:33 AM PST by Fresh Wind (The last remnants of the Old Republic have been swept away)
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To: SoFloFreeper
Chapelle Notre-Dame-du-Haut de Ronchamp in Ronchamp, France

Roman Catholic

Chapelle Notre-Dame-du-Haut de Ronchamp

Hobbits worship here?

56 posted on 11/17/2014 8:06:44 AM PST by SoFloFreeper
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To: SoFloFreeper

Me too. A couple of the others shown so far are not too bad either IMHO. In the end though what matters far more are the hearts of those gathered in these places rather than the architecture.


57 posted on 11/17/2014 8:07:00 AM PST by xp38
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To: SoFloFreeper
Kappal Matha Church in Uvari, India

Roman Catholic

Kappal Matha Church

I'm prayin' on a Jet Plane, don't know if I'll come back again....

58 posted on 11/17/2014 8:07:47 AM PST by SoFloFreeper
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To: Albion Wilde

LOL, man that was some unfortunate designing.


59 posted on 11/17/2014 8:34:55 AM PST by ansel12 (The churlish behavior of Obama over the next two years is going to be spellbinding.)
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To: Hegewisch Dupa; SoFloFreeper

Bingo! From “Communist Goals” read into Congressional Record, January 10, 1963:

22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to “eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms.”

23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. “Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art.”

27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with “social” religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a “religious crutch.”

If God is Beauty, Truth, and Goodness, it only follows that atheistic Communists would promote Ugliness, Falsehood (churches that look like space ships, atomic reactors, museums, shops, and concrete boxes, anything but a church), and Evil (church which is columbarium looking on outside, strobe lights on inside, church with creepy shadows on ceiling, the church in India which looks like a plane on top of a boat - not Evil, but totally Ridiculous!). Who would want to worship God in a space like that? Church architecture has traditionally pointed towards Heaven, to make the worshipper long for Total Beauty by being surrounded by it. When we are surrounded by Beauty, we feel safe and secure. When surrounded by Ugliness, we feel uneasy, on-edge, uncomfortable, and not directed towards God. We are thinking about ourselves and how weird we are feeling. It is not conducive to a repeat experience. In the language of the 70s, we are “turned off.”


60 posted on 11/17/2014 8:46:41 AM PST by nanetteclaret (Unreconstructed "Elderly Kooky Type" Catholic Texan)
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